The annual ecosystem gathering stepped into the unknown
A sold-out Aarhus Townhall focused on all the unknowns that all startup founders will struggle with sooner or later, as the ecosystem gathered for the annual city party.
Around 500 startup founders, investors and other good people who can be squeezed into the “community” category gathered in Turbinehallen on Wednesday evening. Here on the edge of the ongoing regeneration of the old South Harbour district, where new large glass buildings are sprouting up and displacing the old, networks were maintained and new ones created.
For many, Townhall is also the first meeting of the startup community in Aarhus. Around 60 first timers had already met an hour before the doors opened in Turbinehallen, so the unknown became a little more familiar beforehand.
Although Aarhus is of a size where a fragmented ecosystem is inevitable to some extent, the organizers behind Townhall, Startup Aarhus, have managed to put together a recurring event that brings together the city’s startups across both verticals and experience.
Startups are constantly in the unknown
Before the guests were let loose with a free bar, shawarma and networking, there were 37 sharp minutes of presentations on stage, where investor and founder of HBCUvc Hadiyah Mujhid in conversation with entrepreneurs Daria Danilina and Malte Bjerg Vittrup from Aarhus startup Hakio put words to how a startup deals with all the unknown factors that appear on an entrepreneurial journey.
“When we started Hakio, there were many things we knew. We knew that the apparel industry needed our solution – precisely to learn more about their many known factors. But there were also a lot of things we didn’t know. For example, we didn’t know how to price our product. Or how to sell it,” said Malte Bjerg Vittrup, founder of Hakio, which makes AI forecasts for the fashion industry.
Daria Danilina pointed out that most startups are currently in a situation where the pace of technological development with AI is so fast that you have to be constantly open to change.
“ChatGPT and AI have changed everything. All statups need to be ready to change direction quickly now. It has also fundamentally changed how you build startups. Now you can build and scale really fast,” she said.
The reverse pitch
It’s not just founders who often find themselves peering into the unknown. Investors do too. And on the Townhall stage, four VC investors found themselves in an unfamiliar situation, if not an unfamiliar situation, then an unfamiliar one.
They had to pitch in front of an audience – an audience of more than 500 founders, investor colleagues and ecosystem players. There are four new venture funds in the city that have Aarhus in their sights. This says something about where the startup scene is heading. With several prominent exits and large investments, East Jutland has really become interesting for the big VCs.
Jonas Vognsen (Ugly Duckling Ventures), Mathias Brink Lorenz (Delphinus), Christian Winther (Final Frontier) and Martin Bjørn Madsen (People Ventures) took the stage. They were each given two minutes to pitch and present their funds to the listening startup founders. Only time will tell if they are the ones who spot the next unicornA unicorn is a term used to describe a startup company that has reached a valuation of $1 billion or more. More. Because who knows, maybe it will be Aarhus that delivers it?
